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"Waal, Purdee, ef ye hedn't axed me, I warn't layin' off ter say nuthin 'bout'n it. 'Tain't no con-sarn o' mine ez I knows on. But sence ye hev axed me, I hold my jaw fur the fear o' no man. The words ain't writ ez I be feared ter pernounce. An' ez all the kentry hev hearn 'bout'n it 'ceptin' you-uns, I dunno ez I hev enny call ter hold my jaw.
They expected to replenish their packs of food at various places, and if they passed beyond the pale of civilization they would live off the land, or do their best in this respect. "It can't be any worse for us than for those Indians," Snake Purdee had said, when the talk was on the food question. "Yes, but a white man can't live on what those heathen eat," remarked Rolling Stone.
The Lord 'ain't set no seal on my lips ez I knows on." "Naw, sir!" said Purdee, his great eyes glooming through the dusk and flashing with impatience. "He 'ain't set no seal on yer lips, ter jedge by the way ye wallop yer tongue about inside o' 'em with fool words. Whyn't ye bite off what ye air tryin' ter chaw?"
"If we could only catch those burglars, and get back your dad's money, I'd feel better, though," declared Snake Purdee, as he rode in from the Diamond X ranch one day, to announce, among other news items, that Babe, the fat assistant foreman, was able to be about again. "Yes," agreed Bud. "It isn't so much the money loss, as it is the knowledge that such a bunch of men is loose in a neighborhood.
"Thar ain't no way o' settlin' what that thar critter Purdee owns 'ceptin' ez consarns Moses' tables o' the Law. He clings ter them," they said, in conclave about the forge fire when the big doors were closed and the snow, banking up the crevices, kept out the wind. "There ain't no use in percessionin' Purdee's land."
"Sure, senor Purdee!" Del Pinzo spoke fairly good English, and he could be polite when it suited him. "We saw that some one was encamped in the rocks, and I took them for the Yaquis. So we opened fire it is with sadness that I know now it was your friends whom I shot at." "Um! Maybe so maybe not," grimly retorted the cowboy. "Anyhow it's us, and it seems to be you.
In less time than you would have deemed possible, unless you had seen it, the boy ranchers were in the saddle, and were galloping toward the scene of the shooting. The sounds were more plain, now, and as they straightened out on the trail they could see where a fight was in progress. Yellin' kid, Old Billee and Snake Purdee were standing off the attacks of more than double their number.
"Kem along away from thar, ye miser'ble little stack o' bones!" he cried, seizing his sister by one hand and giving her a jerk "a-foolin' round them Grinnells' fence an' a-hankerin' arter thar old baby!" He felt that the pride of the Purdee family was involved in this admission of envy. "I jes wanter pat it on the head wunst," she sighed. "Waal, ye won't now," said the Grinnell boys in chorus.
He was taking no chances on leaving a hidden, lurking foe to fire behind their backs. "All, Senor Purdee. Shall we go?" "When I tell you to, yes. Now, Del Pinzo, you know I don't trust you, and there's no use soft soaping the situation. I wouldn't trust you with a Mexican dollar. So here's what you've got to do. "March over there," and he indicated a bunch of scrub about half a mile away.
It was an ancient feud; his grandfather and some contemporary Purdee had fallen out about the ownership of certain vagrant cattle; there had been blows and bloodshed; other members of the connection had been dragged into the controversy; summary reprisals were followed by counter-reprisals.
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